


I think of you and I picture flying

by RiranandStargazing



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Haikyuu Valentine´s Exchange 2017, M/M, Pining, Soulmate AU, The KageHina is heavily implied, Yamaguchi is so cute, also doubles as a Yamaguchi character study
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:43:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9821024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiranandStargazing/pseuds/RiranandStargazing
Summary: Everyone knows soulmates exist. It’s not like they play a major role in every individual life, but it’s something every single person in the world is aware of. Residing in the subconscious, just a little thought in the back of their heads, like knowing the sky is blue. Exactly just like knowing the sky is blue, but also recognizing it changes colors at dawn and sunset, cloud over, cries and rages with might; not meeting your soulmate didn’t mean catastrophe, at least not to people who liked choosing.Yamaguchi doesn't have the option of never looking for his soulmate. He has the option of never acting on it, though. There's no way he could be good enough.





	

Everyone knows soulmates exist. It’s not like they play a major role in every individual life, but it’s something every single person in the world is aware of. Residing in the subconscious, just a little thought in the back of their heads, like knowing the sky is blue. Exactly just like knowing the sky is blue, but also recognizing it changes colors at dawn and sunset, cloud over, cries and rages with might; not meeting your soulmate didn’t mean catastrophe, at least not to people who liked choosing.

Romantic authors though, oh, they made a living out of the soulmate issue. Not only them, tragedy, drama, political and comedic movies and books had been spawned by authors eager to fulfill a (mostly young) audience dreams. Words, tattoos, timers, skin, eye color, color itself, anything and everything had been explored already. After all, many found those tropes much more endearing than the silly red string not everyone can see.  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°

Tadashi is four when he first sees the string. It really isn't anything grand, just his brain stringing the words 'red' and 'string' and associating them with the actual objects they refer to. It's not as though he really understands what it means, he just knows it's something mommy and her sister talk about. It's something mommy told him he might see.

"Don't worry, Tadashi. You'll get it when you're older."

He wants to be older, now, because there are strings all around the street and there is one tied to his finger. Mommy didn't tell him there would be one, so he tugs and pulls and wonders. His mommy, of course, notices, she is great like that. When she turns to look at him, she smiles and laughs, gently untangling the string from his fingers and ruffling his hair.

"Sweetie, you are so big already!" She says, hugging him tight.

(He sees them at school, once he begins kindergarten. Mommy told him to not say anything, though, and Tadashi isn't anything if not obedient. Father was also delighted at his finding, and Auntie was ecstatic. Apparently, that he could see it was impressive, but also not for the other kids to know.)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°

Throughout grade school, Tadashi is good at lots of things. He is good at math. He’s great in English. He can read kanji without any mistakes. He is good at keeping quiet about the string he sees. He speaks of it to no one and never tries to interfere, even when, through sheer luck, a few of his classmates actually had their soulmates close. Tadashi doesn’t impose the red string on anybody, even if it feels funny.

Tadashi is not good at making friends. Rather, Tadashi is no good at making male friends. The girls in his classes like him well enough, teaching him how to braid hair and, later on, make bentos. He learns about colors and which ribbon is pretty and which one is not. Still, making close friends is difficult, especially when he can’t stop himself from staring at their strings sometimes. Other times, he will tug at his own, tangling and untangling it with a fervor that looked wrong to someone without the sight.

“What are you doing, Yamaguchi?” they’ll ask, for about a second he’ll consider telling, confiding.

He doesn’t. “Nothing, nothing. I’m sorry.”  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°

He wants to meet his soulmate, Tadashi realizes, one evening after staring at nothing for so long that light began to hurt. He wants to meet the person who’ll supposedly complete him. He wonders what they are like, if they want to meet him as much as he wants to meet them. They are close, Tadashi knows this like he knows the sky is blue, but something stops him every time he thinks ‘maybe’. After all, what if they don’t want to meet him? Everyone thinks he is pathetic, after all.

(Young like he is, Yamaguchi doesn’t really understand forever. He doesn’t get the commitment meeting his soulmate will bring along. He doesn’t think of how he might never meet them. He never thinks about the anguish of love or the intensity of bonds. All Yamaguchi knows is the excitement and the fluffy love of his parents.)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°

He doesn't have friends. He doesn’t have them to stop the bullies. He doesn’t have anybody to stop the words and get him away.  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°

He has his soulmate: a tall boy who looks more like a sixth grader than a kid in Tadashi’s grade. He strolls right pass them and sneers.

“Lame.”

‘I know’, Tadashi thinks. ‘I know I'm lame because instead of doing something I’m just crying and I want to go home and… and…’

The bullies leave, running away from the tall kid who could probably beak them in half. He doesn’t spare Tadashi more than a glance before he keeps walking down his path.

’I'll never be as cool as you.’

His soulmate had called him lame. Tadashi doesn’t think his heart should run so fast. Still, as he watches the string stretch as the other boy moves further away, Tadashi can’t help but smile.

(But he met him, and it doesn’t matter that his soulmate is a boy. He has a cool soulmate who had just saved him from the mean boys. He met him, he met him, he met him. Yamaguchi just wants to see him again.)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

“What are you doing?”

´Looking for a safe place. I thought maybe I would find it with you.’

“Ah-ehm-hah… Thank you for the other day!” This is stupid. Why is he so nervous. Anyways? Oh, maybe it was justified if the boy who is his soulmate can't even remember him at first.

“I wanted to join a sport. All the others were full of scary guys. Volleyball seems safe.”

They talk and Tadashi compliments Tsuikishima’s shoes and marveling because the other boy seemed nice and maybe awkward and proud.

(‘Could he talk of me like that?’)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

They are friends, now. Somehow, during fifth year they’d grown close. Volleyball was great, The team was nice. Tadashi felt welcomed. They’d kept at it, too, even in sixth grade, where they were in the same class. Tsukki and him were friends. Good friends.

It meant that he got to see everything fall apart around his soulmate.  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

“See? I told you! The one on the left is the third year, Kawada and on the other side is the second year ace who they call the Little Giant! For about a year now!”

Tadashi can see it. He can practically feel it. Tsuki, who loves his brother more than anything else, who smiles and brags at the very mention of his brother, is staring at the court with a heartbroken expression. Tsuki searching for his brother and finding him on the bleachers and tilting his head like he can’t comprehend what is going on.

“That’s enough already! We know.”

He wants their classmate to _stop, can't you see how much Tsuki is hurting now?_ He wants to take Tsuki’s hand and leave now because the other boy looks so broken he looks like a completely different person. He wants them to just leave so that his soulmate won’t have to see his brother, his hero, stare at them from across the stadium with guilt painted all over his face.

He wants to protect Tsuki from this. Tadashi wants to do it because even if he doesn’t really know what love is, not yet, he knows Tsuki is his friend, his first friend, and he loves the boy like one. He knows that Tsuki is nice and even caring, maybe at times. Above all, he knows that Tsuki loves so much and so wholeheartedly that Tadashi doesn’t think this is the kind of thing a boy like the one next to him deserves.

(Their classmate murmurs about how his own brother has never been in any match, but Tadashi can’t really hear him over the sound of betrayal. As selfish as it is, he is also mad for himself. Akiteru had played volley with them, and he had played _them.)_  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

Tadashi doesn’t talk with Akiteru at all when he visits Tsuki’s house, mostly beacuse he would only shout if he did.

‘How could you? How could you? How could you taint the sport Tsuki loves so much with your lies? How could you destroy his faith on you? Do you know what you did? He plays but he doesn’t look like he loves it anymore! How could you? How could you?’  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

Middle school is marginally better.

Wait no, Tadashi is lying. In middle school it seems like Tsuki keeps him at bay and it hurts because he doesn’t understand. They play volleyball and, when the time comes, they apply to high school together.

He understands Tsuki, sometimes, just a little bit. His soulmate still hurts; he knows this because Tsuki leaves after practice after doing what is strictly necessary. However, his soulmate hasn't stopped loving volleyball.

Why else would he apply to Karasuno?

(He understands a little better now, love. His mother and his aunt love it when he brings Tsuki around, after a slightly uncomfortable first meeting. it wasn’t until later on, when the word ‘eternity’ finally dawned upon him, why they’d both looked so sad the first time. He also thinks that Tsuki probably doesn’t like to come over, since every time he does Tadashi’s family gushes. Considering his soulmate doesn't actually know about the red string tying the together, it probably is unsettling.)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

There’s a sun here, too, Tadashi realizes. Just like in the past, with the Little Giant, there is someone in Karasuno with raw power. As soon as the shrimp, Hinata, jumps for the ball like two meters is nothing, he knows this is the one player who Tsukishima will shield himself behind. Tsuki and himself had known about Kageyama beforehand and he’ll admit with no shame that his thought went ‘oh, so it’s not going to be him, maybe Tsuki can play like he used to, because it’s not going to be me´.

(‘Maybe he can love unafraid again,’ he thinks, selfishly.)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

He is the only first year not on the starting lineup.

_(‘You need to get stronger, so you get to carry all of our bags!’_

‘Lame.’)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

He asks to be taught the jump float serve, because he feels like this might become his only weapon. Because he wants to catch up and it hurts not to be looked at by the person he admires the most.

(No one wants to be tied to a lame person. No one wants to be a lame person.)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

He is shaking all over. His mind is clouded. A part of him, trained by years of volleyball, thinks: ‘calm down, you’ll screw up if you keep at this, calm down’.

(It doesn’t work.)

(Just because you love something- or someone- doesn’t mean things will work out.)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

He has to try, even when the ball is slightly off. Aoba Johsai will win if he fails, not because this is a match point but he is called a pinch server for a reason, damn it. He can’t fail, he can’t fail, he can’t-

The red string flashes at him as he makes contact with ball.

He won’t make it.

Karasuno loses the point and he feels sick.

(It isn’t about the red string and Tsukishima. It’s not about the inferiority he can't do anything about. It’s about a sport that has welcomed him and given him his first friends. It’s about everyone’s pride and desperation. It’s about how he can’t do anything to help now. It’s about the way he just wasted his chance with the only weapon he will ever have. It’s about the disappointment he can see in everyone’s faces and the one in his own heart.)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

He should quit. He should stop hindering the team. If he can't even serve correctly, if he can't measure up to the others, then what can he do? Nothing they can’t, that’s for sure. Tadashi should just leave and stop tearing himself apart for the love that’ll never be requited. While he is at it, maybe he should stop following Tsukishima when, even after years of the other boy not doing anymore than what is necessary, he still can’t measure up.

(He can’t. This is his sport, the one that gave him safety and introduced him to passion. It’s the sport that allowed him to feel part of something. It’s the sport that allowed him to get close to Tsuki. It’s the sport that’s broken both their hearts. He thinks of _‘lame’_ and ‘ _what are you doing?_ ’ and can´t bring himself to leave.)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

“Can you see them?”

It’s Hinata, bright and warm but quiet, quieter than Tadashi has ever heard him. It makes sense, though, because the bus ride back to Miyabi from Tokyo is long and everyone is sleeping. Well, everyone but them. He’d thought Hinata was asleep, but he evidently isn’t.

What is he even-?

Oh.

“W—what are you talking about, Hinata? D-don’t be so c-cryptic!”

Smooth.

Hinata notices, too, and gives him a smile like the sun he is. Tadashi thinks that he has stolen many hearts, both platonically and romantically, by gifting people with that smile. He would have probably have his heart stolen by the shrimp, too, if his soulmate wasn’t a constant, desired presence in his life.

“It’s ok! I can see them too!”

What?

Before he knows it, he’s grabbing Hinata’s hand and guiding them both to the very back where a pair of seats is still available.

“You can see them?” he exclaims more than asks, because being a seer is a weight and he had no idea someone has actually being sharing it with him.

Hinata gets over their sudden movement easily, which is a relief if Tadashi really thinks about it. No one wants a repeat of the Aoba Johsai puking incident. “Yup!” then, because Hinata is nothing if not the most surprising person alive, “Kenma can see them, too! And I’m pretty sure Iwaizumi from Aoba Johsai can!”

Tadashi laughs a little. “So what? There´s a seer in every volleyball team around?”

“A what?”

He raises an eyebrow when Hinata looks confused. “A seer? You know, people like us? Who can actually see the string?”

Hinata laughs now, warm and contagious. “Seer? In my family we call ourselves ‘readers’?”

“That's way too simple.”

“It’s less suspicious.”

“Sorry, I didn´t hear you from up here.”

Hinata glares and laughs, stealing the spite out of Tadashi, who ends up laughing with him. They quiet down when Sugawara rolls over and groans (there's no need to anger mom), but they grin at each other and to Tadashi it feels like a new oath has opened up.

(“So, you know who is your…?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know”

“And are you alright with that? You hated him.”

“Our fates are tied together. Weird, but I´ve heard that from non-readers’ mouths. Guess there's no escaping it, huh?”

“He is not that bad.”

“I know.”

“Have you…?"

“Have you?”

“No.”

“He is not that bad.”

“I know.”

“Do you think he…?”

“Why would he?”

Hinata smiles at him like he knows a secret and _wow, it would have been so safe to fall in love with him._ )  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

It’s not like he forgot. It’s not like it didn’t worry him back then. It’s not like he doesn’t understand what Tsuki is thinking.

But, now? Now everyone is practicing new moves and improving. Now Tsuki might actually be left behind and if that isn’t terrifying he doesn’t know what is. Now it seems like Tsuki is giving up.

Tadashi knows he isn’t. He knows that, in reality, Tsuki loves volleyball like he hasn’t loved anything else. Still, it feels like the lengths to which he is going to bury that love have grown too much. It feels like Tadashi should’ve done something, like he shoulld do something. But he has never known exactly how to go with Tsukishima. He can’t grab his hand like he’d wanted to when they were little. Tsuki can’t run away because this time the problem is inside of him; running uphill doesn’t compare to running from himself.

What is he supposed to do?

(He wishes he could be more like Hinata, who so effortlessly read people and worded his fate in them. He wishes he had the natural ability Hinata seems to have in everything but schoolwork, because maybe now he would be able to speak to Tsuki and heal his wounds.)  
_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_°_

“Hinata?”

“Huh?”

Because he wants to be like Hinata, he feels he can try this.

“What would you… What would you tell Tsuki right now?”

“Eh?” Maybe Tadashi would appreciate Hinata’s eloquence in another situation, but not now while worrying about Tsukki.

“I mean… Like you did with Kageyama and Yachi.”

“I wouldn't tell him anything.”

“Eh?” He would also worry about spending too much time with the middle blocker later.

“I can’t even tell if he wants to play volleyball. There’s no point on forcing him to something he doesn’t want to do. That’d be bad. AH! Why is he like that when he is so tall? If I were his height I’d-“

“Tsuki. Tsuki doesn’t hate volleyball. At least, I don’t think he does. He wouldn’t have come to Karasuno if he did.” That has been his consoling thought all year. He won’t start doubting now.

“What about you? Yamaguchi, what would you say to him?”

“What do you-?“

“You know him best. Yamaguchi, he is your soulmate. You have to be good at this, somehow.”

“But you-.”

“You know what you want to tell him, right? So just go do that.”

‘He’s right. Stop running away, run towards him instead.’

He takes a deep breath and runs out with his soumate’s (nick)name on his lips.

(He has to do this.)

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually my first Haikyuu fic and it was a ride, I tell you.  
> Written for @beanamongstars on tumble! I hope you like it!


End file.
